Monthly Archives: January 2012

A very agreeable day out on the bikes from Elche to Alicante and back along a cycle path (a lovely 4 metre wide one, perfectly tarmaced). Sun shine all day, although a slight nip in the air which meant you needed to stay in the sunshine, but I got most of the way through the day in a sleeveless cycling… Read more »

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A perfectly lazy day today, a bit of a lie in, leisurely breakfast, reading, catchup on some work – yes I know is a Saturday, although only from looking at the calendar, as all the days seem to become a bit of a blur after a while. Finally got around to doing something purposeful around 5pm by going off to… Read more »

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We drove on to the town of Elche today, informed by our Spain guidebook as being renowned for Palm Trees and Shoes. An interesting combination that the guidebook failed to go into, and one that after visiting the town I’m none the wiser on. Maybe there is no connection. There were certainly some palm trees, almost the only tree at… Read more »

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What a beautiful place! The old town is tiny, and perched on a outcrop of rock in the middle of a stunning bowl shaped valley. The surrounding hills are just crying out to be walked, but you’d probably need a week to do them justice. You can only access the old town by foot, and it’s tiny anyway, although there… Read more »

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Montgó was its name. 753 metres to the summit, I’m not sure that qualifies as a mountain but it certainly felt fairly mountainous. Particularly craggy rocks on both the up and down, plus vertiginous drops near the top, and a pretty good day for it, warmer than expected although that could have been due to the exertions. It took about… Read more »

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Once we had climbed the hill to the tower, across a small valley we could see an abandoned village. According to one of the info boards nearby, they used to quarry stone here for the buildings in Dénia, and I guess one the quarry closed there was no need for the housing so far out of town. The modern town… Read more »

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Relatively relentless rain all last night, compounded by being parked amongst pine trees that conspired to make the rain drops bigger and therefore noisier as they landed on the van roof. As a result sleep was slightly disrupted, which gave us the perfect excuse to stay in bed till lunch time. Yes I know, lazy slobs! As the rain persisted… Read more »

BBC News – From marathons to mud running Marathon running has been booming for some time, triathlons have flourished recently and now people are flocking to gruelling assault courses. But how did recreational sport get so extreme? I’d been wondering a little bit about this myself. My own experiments with the Paleo Diet (still works a treat thanks!) and gym… Read more »

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Not much energy for anything today, just happy to take it easy. I spent most of the morning doing the chores around the van, sweeping out, floor and bathroom cleaning, washing both bikes, the trailer, giving the garage a clean out. Mel spent the time doing a bit of work in the sunshine. After a late lunch we decided on… Read more »

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On the Behaviour of the iPhone Mute Switch – Daring Fireball Cripes, is there intelligent life out there? It’s a frickin ‘mute’ switch, not a ‘mute somethings’ switch. It mutes. If you want exceptions to that behaviour, the app in question should request explicit consent, either each and every time, or as an app wide setting. Much like location services… Read more »